On my move

I've been a Chicagoan for all of my adult life. If I'm being honest with myself, it is a source of pride - adds a bit of a swagger to my step. Chicago is a shining emerald city, full of contrasts and odd juxtapositions. The glint of the loop next to the grime of the West side, the automaton trixies of Lincoln Park breezing by the grinning Streetwise vendors. For me, Chicago complicates. It has asked me to bear witness to the nuances of life, its privileges, pretenses and preposterousness. Chicago is quite rigidly unfair, but beautiful and alive. It feels complicated, but invigorating, to call such complexities my home.

Moving down to Bloomington to start my doctorate tugged at that swagger in another way. It felt good to tell people about my accomplishment, to plan the move, to search for houses, to feel in control of life's direction. Bloomington is small. It feels predictable. It lacks the challenge that allowed me to love Chicago. In my first month here, it has seemed it may be capable of being controlled.

And one month later I am able to acknowledge that the move did not change everything, that Bloomington is not some "hoosier" town with nothing to it. That any swagger I have gained from a measly 7 years in a big city does not grant me the right to be prideful or condescending to a complex, if much smaller, town. As if my ability to acknowledge my inability to fully understand Chicago gives me the knowledge needed to fully understand Bloomington. As if recognizing my privilege in one context gives me the right to dismiss it in another.

Let me explain. In Chicago, poverty, racism, inequality and labor rights, were issues I felt screamed and shouted for attention. People cared about these issues and took it upon themselves to fight them. It was in Chicago I learned to do what I could to acknowledge my own privilege, and to recognize that I would always need to revise my understanding of those privileges. This is the lesson Chicago taught year after year, and no amount of pride in my city can change that lesson.

Bloomington's heart and soul is the University. It seems simple to see the University as the sun in my galaxy, to revolve completely around its beauty, its ideals, its lessons. But what then did Chicago teach me? In Chicago should I have let the glint of the skyscrapers blind me to the barred classrooms, jam-packed with students who had never seen the damn lake? Did the siren song of the J. Crew flats on the trixies' feet stop me from buying my Street Wise magazine? Again if I'm honest, sometimes. The city is alluring in that way. As I imagine the limestone walls of the University will be. As I imagine the soul-less data I will need to imbibe to master my discipline will be. I guess I hope my move, these two maps and my lessons from Chicago will all stick. That I will call to mind the complexity of Chicago, and that I will remember that complexity exists here too.

City Data Statistics on Bloomington, IN

City Data Statistics on Chicago, IL